Israel ‘made a desert bloom’ — and I helped — Kamala Harris to AIPAC

Senator Kamala Harris of California, who is viewed a progressive leader with higher political prospects, spoke to the rightwing Israel lobby group AIPAC last week. Her remarks to students were private and were not recorded, AIPAC told the Intercept’s Zaid Jilani.

The appearance is a reminder that Harris is taking the inside lane in the Democratic Party: Last year she met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. She was notably not a signatory to the Dianne Feinstein letter urging Israel not to erase a Palestinian village in the West Bank to make way for another illegal settlement. Harris seems to have calculated that she can alienate the leftleaning base of the party in order to cultivate the elites that are the springboard to higher office.

On that occasion, Senator Harris proved herself to be another ardent Israel supporter in Congress, indistinguishable from a rightwing Republican; in fact, she repeated the Israel lobby mantra that she will do all she ccan to prevent Israel from becoming a partisan issue. She also denounced the delegitimization of Israel (implicitly the boycott movement), celebrated the $38 billion US aid package to Israel, praised Israel as a democracy that shares American values, said “a state for the Jewish people is so essential,” never mentioned the occupation, said “Palestinians” only once in the context of the two-state solution, and called for taking on Iran’s support for terrorism.

And yes, Israel made the desert bloom, she said; and Kamala Harris played her part, collecting money in Jewish National Fund boxes in order to plant trees. FYI, the JNF is a discriminatory agency that provides land to Jews, and that used such tree-plantings to cover up the ruins of Palestinian villages from the Nakba, to which refugees were not permitted to return.

Good morning, AIPAC. Good morning. What an honor. Lillian [Pinkus], congratulations on your outstanding presidency, and it’s great to be with you again this year. I also want to thank AIPAC’s executive director Howard Kohr, and I’m just thrilled to see all of the students in the audience. In you I see our future.

I want to especially recognize the nearly 1,000 Californians who are here today and of course including my dear friends and AIPAC board members, Anita Friedman and Cissie Swig and Amy Friedkin. And I’m proud to say and be among the many voices represented here, the California delegation is the largest and hopefully the loudest. There you go.

So having grown up in the Bay Area, I fondly remember those Jewish national fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel. Years later when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom. I soaked in the sights and sounds and smells of Jerusalem. I stood in Yad Vashem, devastated by the silent testimonies of the six million Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust, and we must always remember that solemn promise, never again.

And I did what I often do when visiting a new country. I visited the highest court in the land, and as I toured Israel’s Supreme Court, I was struck by the iconic architecture which embodies Israel’s founding principles of democracy and rule of law. The design of that building left a lasting impression on me. Its straight lines which represent the immutable nature of truth while the curved walls and glass represent the fluid nature of tzedek, of justice.

And this is a concept that is personal for me because it’s that same commitment to justice for the voiceless and the vulnerable that led my parents as students to march for civil rights in the 1960s while pushing me in a stroller. And it’s why I became a prosecutor and personally prosecuted everything from low-level offenses to homicides.

It’s why I became San Francisco District Attorney and was later elected Attorney General of California where I took on transnational gangs, cyber criminals, and mortgage fraud. And that commitment to justice is why I ran to become a United States senator from the great state of California, the point being to continue that fight. And a critical piece of my agenda is the fight to defend and strengthen our national security.

As a member of the both the Senate Intelligence Committee and Homeland Security Committee, I have a front row seat to these issues, and I am proud to stand strongly with America’s allies, including Israel.

So let me be clear about what I believe. I stand with Israel because of our shared values which are so fundamental to the founding of both our nations. I believe the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable, and we can never let anyone drive a wedge between us.

Our bonds are rooted in our shared history and are strengthened by the ties between our peoples. And in the words of Shimon Peres whose loss we mourn so deeply, for Israel’s existence we need the friendship of the United States of America. And of course he knew that feeling goes both ways, and there’s no question that friendship and our partnership must be unwavering.

And I believe Israel should never be a partisan issue, and as long as I’m a United States senator I will do everything in my power to ensure broad and bipartisan support for Israel’s security and right to self-defense.

I believe that the only viable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two states for two people living side by side in peace and security. I believe that a resolution to this conflict cannot be imposed. It must be agreed upon by the parties themselves. Peace can only come through a reconciliation of differences, and that can only happen at the negotiating table.

I believe that when any organization delegitimizes Israel, we must stand up and speak out for Israel to be treated equally. And that is why the first resolution I co-sponsored as a United States senator was to combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations and reaffirm that the United States seeks a just, secure, and sustainable two-state solution.

And as someone who’s personally prosecuted hate crime, I also believe that we cannot stand by while anti-Semitism, hate crime, and bigotry are on the rise, whether that’s a swastika on a Jewish family and children’s services bus in San Francisco or the burning of a mosque in Tampa. That’s why I am pleased to announce for the first time here at AIPAC that I’m introducing a Senate resolution that condemns targeting of Jews as well as any form of religious bias, racism, misogyny, or other hateful acts targeting minorities across the United States.

And let’s be candid. Many, including those in this hall, have been directly impacted by the outrageous incidents targeting the Jewish community. This violence and hate is alarming and simply unacceptable. No one should have to worry about their children’s safety when they drop them off at the JCC.

No one should have to be afraid to put a menorah in their front window or on their front lawn. And no one should ever have to fear that the grave of a loved one might be desecrated because of their faith. So my resolution calls on law enforcement to expedite investigations of hate crime and hold perpetrators accountable.

My resolution calls on law enforcement to fully report hate crime statistics, and my resolution calls on the administration to support victims and fund security at places of worship and other institutions that have been targeted, of any faith. And as I fight to promote human rights and security, Israel and the Jewish community will always be a priority for me.

And that is why as senator I am particularly focused on three areas where I believe the United States and Israel can expand our cooperation and where California plays an important and central role. And the three are defense, cybersecurity, and water security.

So let’s think about it. First, defense. In the midst of uncertainty and turmoil, America’s support for Israel’s security must be rock solid. And as Iran continues to launch ballistic missiles while it arms and funds its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, we must stand with Israel. As Hamas maintains its control of Gaza and fires rockets across Israel’s southern border, we must stand with Israel. And as ISIS and civil war in Syria destabilize the region, displacing millions and threatening shared security interest, we must support all those affected by ongoing violence and terror, and we must stand with Israel.

Our defense relationship is critical to both nations, which is why I support the United States’ commitment to provide Israel with $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade. It is why I support full funding for Israel, including for the Arrow, David’s Sling, and the Iron Dome missile defense systems which save lives. And that’s why I am fully committing to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge.

At the same time the United States must never permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. The Iran nuclear deal must be vigorously enforced through robust monitoring, inspection, and verification. And if Iran cheats, there’s no question. Iran must be held accountable. And so as Iran inserts itself in Syria, including through the deployment of advanced military equipment and missiles that threaten Israel, we must not tolerate Iran fanning the flames of instability and violence in the region.

In addition, Russia’s explicit support for these actions is a direct threat to American interest, and it makes Israel less secure. So I say the Trump administration must be crystal-clear with Putin. Russia must stop its support of Iran. This is a threat to the United States, and it is a threat to Israel.

A second area where I believe we can expand our cooperation is cybersecurity and technology. As cyberattacks expose the vulnerabilities of our most essential systems and infrastructure, the United States and Israel must strengthen our innovation and technological capacities and our defenses together. Israel has more scientists and startups per capita than any other country in the world, and I’m proud that California, building on the 2014 commitments made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Governor Brown, has facilitated many of these technological partnerships and investments.

Today Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley are inextricably linked, ensuring that our two countries remain on the cutting edge. And when I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu last month, I was proud to discuss California’s cyber advancements and the way we can expand those joint efforts.

And the third area of growing cooperation is water security. So as any Californian in this hall can tell you, water is the lifeblood of our economies and our communities, and because of California’s history of droughts, we know we cannot take water for granted. In this regard we could not have a better example than Israel. Yes, Israel is a nation that is 60 percent desert, yet so water-secure that it exports water to its neighbors. And Israel has been a great partner to California in this area.

Take, for example, Carlsbad, California where an Israeli company built a desalination plant which provides 50 million gallons of water to 400,000 Californians every day. So while the United States and Israel are geographically separated by water, we can also be bound by water. And I’m eager to champion these three partnerships in the senate now and in the future and to ensure that California plays a key role in the relationship between the United States and Israel.

So in conclusion, AIPAC, we all know these are difficult times. I stand here clear eyed about the dangers of division in our country and in our world, understanding why a state for the Jewish people is so essential. And I also stand here as someone with a lifelong commitment to justice, a lifelong faith in the power of democratic values and the innate oneness and goodness of human beings. And I believe that it’s the common ground that unites so many of us, values like faith, family, respect, and empathy that will see us through.

Just look, for example, at the response when Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia were so horribly, horribly vandalized. Muslim activists quickly raised money to restore the headstones with one organizer posting on social media, “I want to ask all Muslims to reach out to your Jewish brothers and sisters and stand together against this bigotry.”

Common ground. Look at the words of Elie Wiesel, who I knew personally and loved, when he said, “The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.”

Common ground. Look at Israel’s Supreme Court, that beautiful place I visited, upon which sits a Tunisian judge alongside an Israel-Arab Christian and a Brooklyn-born Israeli, all presided over by a female chief justice—common ground.

Or look at my own life where a daughter of a South Asian mother and a Jamaican father concluded her own interfaith wedding with her husband breaking a glass and everyone yelling mazel tov.

So that’s who we are, and if we embrace those values that have always made the United States and Israel great, then I believe our two nations will continue to move forward together for years and years to come. I thank you, AIPAC.

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“Or look at my own life where a daughter of a South Asian mother and a Jamaican father concluded her own interfaith wedding with her husband breaking a glass and everyone yelling mazel tov.”

Yeah, mazel tov. Jewish Zionists own the Democratic Party. That her remarks were private says volumes. I quote from a July 2017 article from Black Agenda Report.

“According to recent press reports, California’s newly elected senator Kamala Harris has begun her turn on the rich people’s casting couch . Harris won’t have to run for Senate re-election until 2022, so the quick once over from the high and mighty means only one thing. America’s oligarchs in the Democratic Party are considering her for the job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2020.

Former Hillary Clinton donors have lined up to vet Harris. Names of the usual suspects like George Soros are popping up as past Harris fund raisers. Their goal is to make sure that voters’ will have limited choices and won’t dare to think beyond the names that are handed to them for consideration.” (Margaret Kimberley) https://www.blackagendareport.com/kamal_harris_new_obama

… On that occasion, Senator Harris proved herself to be another ardent Israel supporter in Congress … “a state for the Jewish people is so essential,” …

Except that it isn’t essential and the religion-based identity of Jewish does not grant to those who choose to hold it the right to have one.

… And as I fight to promote human rights and security, Israel and the Jewish community will always be a priority for me. …

When asked about Palestinians, who have been denied human rights and security for decades, Ms. Harris smiled and replied, Pallywhatians? Oh, you mean anti-Semitic, Jew-hating Ayrabs. Well, I say f*ck ’em.

The Kamela Harris presidential buzz has been a mainstream media balloon that has received no traction from the informed progressive base. The establishment and media needed to unify behind one Dem primary candidate in 2016 and bend rules with the DNC and otherwise to keep Sanders from winning. As soon as articles appeared citing matters such as Harris burying the fraud case against Steve Mnuchin, the charges of sexism began from publications that didn’t cover Carol Moseley-Braun in her presidential bid and smear others like Tulsi Gabbard. The Oprah balloon was perhaps for the same reason, as she has Bill Kristol’s support and propagandized for the Iraq invasion. The Lobby is realizing that their best chance for 2020 is Biden. Biden’s 2016 speech to AIPAC had a modicum of spine; one story, though, involves announcing settlements during a public ceremony that Biden attended in Israel – a tactic that tests and trains Israel’s poodles.

Surveying the political landscape 2020 Dems skip right past the knockout in the orange jacket, who served in a combat zone in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009, AND is Samoan, to hone in on the dinosaur w the powdered wig. Shades of Kerry-Bush. Including tax cuts.

DX, A good source on this is Electric Intifada. There are a few of what they call baby steps as the Democratic base is calling for change, while Republican libertarian voters get little help from their reps outside Ron Paul. Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders signed a letter against the destruction of a Palestinian town.

In 2003 ranking Member of Congress Jim Moran (now retired) said “If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this,” and was forced to apologize. “Congressman Moran’s comments were not only inappropriate, they were offensive,” Pelosi said. “He has properly apologized. His comments have no place in the Democratic Party.”

Chris k, what poll? You do not cite the poll you saw. One thing we do know for sure, though: Benjamin Netanyahu (who was not PM at the time) was on CNN within hours (even before any US officials from the Bush administration) ranting to the American people for military action.

I thought at the time, how is it that when Americans are glued to their tubes, we have an unelected foreign figure lecturing America what they need to do next? Where are our own “leaders?”

There is no way one can ever call out any sub-group of Jews without being labeled an dirty anti Semite

You should deserve that label because you didn’t pay attention: in the example you chose, of the Neocon murderers, they had a non-Jewish Saturday Gentile (who even was of German origin, if I remember correctly.) Or maybe even a couple of them.

People–MondoWeiss readers and editors, and anyone else who cares about truth and honesty–should point out as much as possible that “made the desert bloom” is a racist, anti-Palestinian trope. This is something that articles, books, and documentaries should be created to discuss.

Zionists constantly talk about “tropes,” and I probably first heard this usage in the context of the Al Jazeera documentary about the Israel lobby. As someone who cares about literature, this was annoying to me, since I’d only thought of “tropes” as referring to “themes” or “topics,” and it seemed to me to be a misuse of language when you’re really talking about “antisemitic caricatures.” I suppose “trope” in this context might be part of bringing into the discussion a rather pretentious look at “narratives.”

Anyway, that usage seems to be mostly or entirely used to shout down anyone who says anything truthful about zionism, the Israel lobby, or the abuse of the Palestinians. But, having got used to the word and the way zionists use it, I think it would be fair to tell everyone that “made the desert bloom” is part of a racist, anti-Palestinian false narrative.

Zionists, from the beginning, have abused and misunderstood their environment and climate. They’re in the process of completely destroying Israel-Palestine’s groundwater resources. A larger discussion can get into the subtleties about which ethnic group did what in agricultural terms, or how successful an agricultural economy can be when it’s supported by vast investments and donations from Europe and the United States. But at the very least, every reference to “making the desert bloom” should be responded to by pointing out that it is a racist trope. It’s only ever been used to paint Palestinians as something lesser, something inferior.

In a memorandum to Colonial Secretary Lord Passfield, dated 17 January 1930, John Chancellor, Britain’s high commissioner for Palestine, called for a complete suspension of Jewish immigration and land purchase to protect Arab agriculture, pointing out that “all cultivable land was occupied; that no cultivable land now in possession of the indigenous population could be sold to Jews without creating a class of landless Arab cultivators.”

A government survey conducted in 1944 estimated that the area Jews had under cultivation in all of Palestine was 716,750 dunams (one dunam equals about a quarter of an acre) or only about sixty per cent of their total landholdings (Survey of Palestine, Government of Palestine, Jerusalem, 1946, Vol.1, p.379; cited by Prof. Walid Khalidi, Harvard, From Haven to Conquest, p. lxix), which as of 1948, amounted to about 5.67 per cent of the entire country (Hadawi, Bitter Harvest, p. 50). When the British Mandate ended on 15 May 1948, the total area of Palestine under cultivation by Arab farmers (excluding that devoted to citrus crops, which was equally owned) was 5,484,700 dunams compared to 425,450 dunums by Jewish farmers. (Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora, p. 125)

The only part of Palestine that can be described as “desert” is the Negev in which Palestinians were farming 2,109,234 dunums as of 1935, whereas by 1946, the total amount of Jewish owned land in the Negev did not exceed 21,000 dunums. (Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora, p.125). More revealing, however, is the fact that in 1944 the area of the Negev alone under cultivation by Palestinians “was three times the total area cultivated by the entire Jewish community in Palestine after more than sixty years of loudly trumpeted ‘pioneering.'” (Khalidi, From Haven To Conquest, pp. lxviii-lxix).

In short, it was the Palestinians who made the desert bloom and they had been doing so for centuries. The proficiency and high productivity of Palestinians farmers just prior to their dispossession and expulsion by Zionists is further demonstrated by the following facts: In 1939, Palestine exported over 15 million cases of citrus fruits (A Survey of Palestine, for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, Vol. l, p. 337, cited by Reverend G. Simon Harak, Washington Report on the Middle East (WRMEA) August/ September 2000, p. 46.) In 1942, Palestine produced nearly 305,000 tons of grains and legumes (ibid.) In 1943, Palestine produced 280,000 tons of fruit, excluding citrus fruits (Statistical Abstract of Palestine 1944-45, 1944-45, Department of Statistics, Government of Palestine, p. 225.) In 1945, Palestine produced nearly 245,000 tons of vegetables (A Survey of Palestine for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, Vol. 1, pp. 325-26) and had over 600,000 dunums (150,000 acres) of land planted with olive trees that produced nearly 80,000 tons of olives and accounted for one per cent of the world’s total olive oil production (Statistical Abstract of Palestine, 1944-45, Department of Statistics, Government of Palestine, p. 225.) In 1946, Walter C. Lowdermilk, assistant chief of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service found that “the soils of Palestine were uniformly better” than those of California (Palestine’s Economic Future: A Review of Progress and Prospects, London, UK: Percy Lund Humphries & Co., Ltd., 1946, pp 19-23.)

“During the 1944-1945 planting season, nearly 210,000 tons of grain were cultivated in Palestine, of which 193,376 tons were Arab crops, compared to 16,579 tons of Jewish crops. Almost 80,000 tons of olives were cultivated that year, over 78,000 tons of which were grown by Arab Palestinians. Of the over 244,800 tons of vegetables produced in Palestine that season, Arab farmers were responsible for more than 189,000 tons; of the 94,700 tons of fruit, Arab orchards produced 73,000 tons. Nearly 143,000 tons of melons were cultivated, over 135,600 tons of which were Arab-produced, while almost all of the more than 1,680 tons of tobacco grown were on Arab farms, as were 20,000 tons of figs and 3,000 tons of almonds. Eighty percent of the 40-50,000 tons of grapes and 4-5 million liters of wine were produced in Arab vineyards. The survey found that in Jericho, Tiberias and in the central coastal plain, ‘about 60 per cent of the area (nearly 8,000 dunums) planted with bananas is Arab owned.’ The overall price of the Palestinian agricultural yield that season was more than £21,800,000. Jewish cultivation was responsible for nearly £4,711,000 compared with Palestinian Arab production of over £17,100,000, accounting for almost 80% of total value.” (Quoted by Wide Asleep in America, “Operation Desert Bloom: The Zionist Myth that Won’t Spoil, Wither, or Die,” 30 June 2011)

The Zionist claim that Israel has dramatically increased the amount of land under cultivation within its borders is another fabrication as is Shimon Peres’ assertion that such land was “redeemed from swamp and wilderness.” In fact, as of 1979, “About 80 percent, and probably more, of the 2,185,000 dunums ‘brought into cultivation’ [by Israel] since 1948…constitute farmland belonging to Palestinian refugees.” (Alan George, Making the Desert Bloom…” p. 99)

The truth is that during the first three decades of Israel’s existence when it received a net import of capital totalling $31.5 billion (Maariv, 1 July 1977) and had the use of modern agricultural equipment as well as sophisticated farming techniques, its record of land cultivation was quite poor. “[T]he area within what became Israel actually being farmed by Arabs in 1947 was greater than the physical area which was under cultivation in Israel almost thirty years later…. The impressive expansion of Israel’s cultivated area since 1948 has been more apparent than real since it involved mainly the ‘reclamation’ of farmland belonging to the refugees; this is probably as true for the Negev desert as for the rest of Israel.” (Alan George, “Making the Desert Bloom…”, p.100)
ENOUGH SAID!!

If Palestine was a desert waiting for foreign colonists to make it bloom, then why has it been fought over and occupied for thousands of years by countless empires/invaders including the Persians, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Mongols, Ottoman Turks, British, and Israelis (to name a few)?

The JNF planted European pines to cover up all the Palestinian villages Israel destroyed They are firetraps.
Australian farmers take pride in ridding the country of native vegetation. The land suffers in heatwaves.
Settlers have no idea

If only AH had known about this unmatched horticultural expertise. The Sahara may have been an option and last I heard their weren`t any Arab villages amongst all those dunes.
A land full of sand for a people without sand.

Phil, what do you expect from a US senator who is paid by the Zionist Israel Lobby? Her talk is just repulsive. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is not a “discriminatory agency” like you call it, it’s just a racist one, plain and simple. They plant trees only on Jewish land and for Jews only. It doesn’t come to no surprise that these so-called liberals or progressives in the US or in Israel are just hypocrites. Phil, I just remained you of the excellent and very realistic talk by Gideon Levy in Washington.

I am sick and tired of these “progressive” politicians! In Yiddish we’d say: tuches layckers… Or worse, are they brain washed by the Zionist propaganda, meaning that they are so stupid? While reading her speech, I felt nausea.

“As a child, I never sold Girl Scout cookies, I went around with a @JNFUSA box collecting funds to plant trees in #Israel.”

– Kamala Harris

“I am not Israeli, the uniform that I wore in the military unfortunately was not an Israeli uniform, it was an American uniform, although my wife was in the IDF, and one of my daughters was in the IDF, and my two little boys — our two little boys one of whom will be bar mitzvahed tomorrow… hopefully he’ll come back [to Israel], his hobby is shooting and he’ll come back and be a sniper for the IDF.”

– Sheldon Adelson

This boasting about how they prefer Israel to their own country. Why in the world don’t they go live in Israel if they love it so much?

When people are willing to talk about Jewish power and the fact that it is the power to keep it quiet, then maybe we will get somewhere. Till then, any brave soul who dares to tell the Emperor that he has no clothes will just be scorned as a dirty anti Semite.

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